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PUKSKMICI) MY 



A. D D E E S S 



Loyal Virginians to their Friends in the North. 



Sir.:— 

The undersigned, Committee of Correspondence of the Virginia 
Union Association, take the liberty to address you this oommuni- 
cation upon the subject of re-organization of the State Government 
in Virginia. 

We desire to lay before you a brief history of the experiment that 
has already been made here — to explain to you its results at the 
present time, to point out the dangers wJiicfi threaten us, and to 
suggest what appears, in our judgmentfthe only efficient protection 
against them. 

The history of the restored Government of Virginia is briefly this : 

Immediately after the ordinance of secession was declared adopted, 
a Convention was called to meet at Wheeling to undo that work. It 
met on the 11th of June, 1861, annulled the secession ordinance, and 
provided for the election of State officers to those places Avhioh it 
declared vacant by the treason of their incumbents. Hon. F. H. 
Pierpoint was elected Governor at that election, and the Legislature, 
subsequently, elected Senators to the United States Senate, where 
they took their seats. Gentlemen were also elected to the House of 
Representatives. Those chosen from the Western part of the State 
were admitted; but those from the Eastern part were rejected on the 
ground that only a minority of their constituents could vote at their 
election, -the majority being prevented from voting by the rebel occu- 
pation of their districts. 



f 






In 1863 the State was divided, and a new State Government was 
instituted for West Virginia. By the erection of this new State, 
only a few counties remained subject to the control of Gov.Pierpoint 
and the old Virginia restored State organization. These few coun- 
ties dwindled down afterwards through the advance of the rebel 
military lines, and the assumption of exclusive power ))y Gen. But- 
ler, at Norfolk, to one county, Alexandria, and a small part of another, 
Fairfax, in all containing about fifteen thousand white inhabitants, 
of whom a few thousand only Avere loyal. 

Over this territory, the Restored Government claimed to exercise 
authority from the summer of 18C4 to the spring of 1865, its execu- 
tive office and archives having been removed to Alexandria at the 
separation from West Virginia in 1863. 

In the opening of 1864, by call of the Legislature, in session at 
Alexandria, and then representing, or claiming to represent nine 
counties, a State Convention was convened for the purpose of amend- 
ing the Constitution of the State. Delegates assembled from eight 
counties, representing a constituency, (if we may take the vote which 
elected them as a criterion,) of fifteen hundred votes in all. 

This Convention proceeded to revise the Constitution, and having 
completed the revision, declared the Constitution adopted without 
submitting it to the people. 

The Constitution thus adopted, was, b}" the act, to extend over the 
Avhole State as fast as it was recovered to the Union. 

Upon the eapture of Lee's army, in April, 18G5, this Constitution, 
it is claimed by its friends, became the law of the land, from North 
Carolina to the Potomac. Ineffectual attempts had at several times 
been made to introduce gentlemen into the House of Representatives 
from several Districts in this State, but in each instance they had 
been denied admission, on the grounds before stated. 

In the winter of 1864-5, the Legislature elected Messrs. Segar and 
Underwood to the U. S. Senate, in place of Bowden, deceased, 
and Carlisle, whose term had expired. These gentlemen applied for 
admission, but Congress adjourned without taking action upon their 
cases. < \ 



About the 1st of May, 1865, President Johnson issued his procla- 
mation recognizing Gov. Pierpoint as Govornor of the State, and 
directing him to reorganize its civil government. The Wheeling Con- 
vention of June 11th, 1865, had declared the old Constitution and 
Code of Virginia still in force. The Alexandria Convention of Feb- 
ruary 13th, 1864, had abolished slavery, and had changed the quali- 
fication of voters so as to require them to take an oath to support 
the " Constitution of the United States, and the Restored Govern- 
ment of Yirginia," and to sivear that they had not " since the 1st day 
of January, 1864, voluntarily given aid and assistance in an}^ way, 
to those in rebellion against the Government of the United States, 
for the purpose of promoting the same." It provided that the Legis- 
lature might abolish these restrictions, and that the person violating 
the oath should be subject to the penalties of perjury. It also pro- 
vided that no person should hold office who had not taken such oath, 
or who had " held office under the so-called Confederate Govern- 
ment, or under any rebellious State Government, or who had been a 
member of the so-called Confederate Congress, or a member of any 
State Legislature in rebellion against the authority of the United 
States," excepting therefrom county officers. It did not make any 
provision that the legislature might abolish these restrictions uppn 
holding office. 

Such was the condition of aftairs upon the recognition of Gov. 
Pierpoint by the President, in May, 1865. By the provisions of the 
Constitution and Code of Virginia, a general election for members of 
the House of Representatives and members of the Legislature, is 
holden on the fourth Thursday of May. One of Gov. Pierpoint's first 
official acts, after being recognized by the President, was, to advise 
the people not to vote for members of Congress at that time, for the 
reason, that he should order a special election for that purpose upon 
the full reorganization of the State. They accordingly did not vote for 
members of Congress, but proceeded to elect members of the Legis- 
lature from such counties as were organized on the day of election. 

The disloyal element of our population, largely outnumbering the 
loyal element, and determined to rule the State, almost universally 



4 
subscribed to the oath required of voters by the Alexandria Constitu- 
tion ; and men, who up to that time had projjcnl y ol'csKcd allegiance 
to the rebel State Government at Richmond, and to the so-called 
Confederate States, and who had contemptuously repudiated the 
Restored Government of Virginia, and the Government of the United 
States, came forward and took the oath just in time to run for office, 
and to vote. Such men, with one or two exceptions, were elected to 
the Legislature, and precisely such men, without any exception, 
would have been elected to Congress, had the Congressional elec- 
tions been held. 

The Legislature elect, promises to be an organization not at all less 
disloyal than the Legislature Avhich sat at Richmond under the aus- 
pices of William Smith. 

It is, of course, of no lis(^ to contest elections on the ground of dib- 
loyal voting, or the incligibilit}^ of members elect, for disloyal men 
will not exclude members for disloyalty. We find ourselves bound 
hand and foot, and in the power of a disloyal Legislature. 

The unconditionally loyal men of Virginia, have, for some time, 
auticipated that these results might follow. They, however, relied 
with considerable confidence upon Gov. Picrpoint to see that his re- 
organized Government did not immediately slip out of his hands into 
the hands of rebels. You have, perhaps, shared our surprize and 
disappointment in reading his recent speech to a delegation from the 
southern part of the State in which he designated the provisions of 
the Alexandria Constitution referred to above, as the ''funj of war 
leyialafio)),'^ pledging his immediate ettbrts to have those provisions 
repealed, and declaring his intention to place the power of the State 
as soon as possible, in the hands of those who ibrmcrly controlled it. 
This is being done as rapidly as it can well be efiected. Already the 
Legislature has b'^en called together in secret session, the object of 
the call being, as appears by convincing proof, to abrogate the existing 
Constitutional restrictions upon the elective franchise, and, in the 
language of the Governor, "to make it more liberal, even, than the 
delegation of the several counties request. 

It has, in a session of only nine days, yielded all that the disloyal 
asked, abolishing all distinction, so far as lay in its power, between 



5 * 
loyalty and disloyalty. There remains now no protection to 
those who have stood by the Union, except what those who but re- 
cently have been in open rebellion choose to award. The usual 
relations of the successful and unsuccessful parties in war is here 
I'cversed. The Union men of Virginia are in the position of a con- 
quered people. By the closing up of the war, their lives, their 
property, and their political rights, are placed in the control of those 
who in the war were their public enemies. 

If it be the purpose of the Government of the United States to re- 
establish in Virginia the State organization which has been in power 
at Richmond during the last four years, that purpose is being com- 
pleteh" arcomplished b}^ the present current of events. Already that 
organization is established in nearly all departments and in all re- 
spects, excepting only the persons of the governor and of the few 
executive officers who were appointed before his removal from Alex- 
andria to Richmond. Appointments, high and low, to positions in 
every part of the State and in every interest of the State, are merely 
reappointments of those who filled the positions under Letcher and 
Smith. With the elective franchise extended, as is said to be re- 
commended by the Governor, to all, or the mass of those Avho voted 
under Letcher and Smith, we shall have fully returned, by a very 
short circuit, to exactly the point where we should have been, had 
the rebel Governor and the rebel State organization been promptly 
acknowledged on the day of the fall of Richmond. 

To prevent such a result, the only remedy appears to us to be an 
appeal to Congress and the Administration. 

"VVe address this communication to you that you may fully under- 
stand our situation, and may use your influence in moulding public 
sentiment in the North and in Congress, to the end that just and 
salutary measures may be adopted for the protection of the loyal 
people of Virginia, and, as we conceive, of the whole country, in the 
e^itablishment of a State Government for this State. 

We have organized an association whose branches are designed to 
extend over the State as fast and as far as they can be organized, 
and whose design is to unite and harmonize the Union element upon 
such a course of action as will prevent the consequences set forth 
above. 



V 



That course of action we are unanimously agreed upon, viz.: — to 
secure the elective franchise to our colored population, ay soon as it 
can be safely done, and, meanwhile, to establish a strong and lo3''al 
Government, either military or territorial. Our reasons for this are, 
many of them, such as will be readily suggested to the minds of all 
reflecting persons who have given attention to this subject and to the 
present condition of things. 

Besides being just and right in itself and required by the principles 
of our llcpublican Government, disloyalty without it will assuredly 
triumph; our State Government will be wholly conducted and con- 
trolled by those who have been actively and prominently engaged 
in sustaining the rebellion, and our representatives in Congress will 
be just those who would have been returned to the rebel Congress 
had that body continued to exist. The obligations of the State, issued 
to sustain the rebellion and held by the people of the State, amount- 
ing, it is said, to several millions of dollars, will undoubtedly be as- 
sumed, and thus the loyal people of the State, who have been on the 
side of the Government in its late struggle, will be taxed once to 
pay the cost of putting down the rebellion and again more heavily 
to pay the cost of sustaining it. 

What may be the probable eflect on our national obligations and 
the payment of the national debt, as well as the eflect upon the 
general legislation of the country, by the admission to Congress of 
such representatives as we arc sure to have if the present state of 
things is to continue, it is unneccessary for us to suggest, but it is 
pertinent in this connection to call attention to the increased repre- 
sentation which the emancipation of the slaves will give, not only 
to this, Vjut to all the insurrectionary States, and to the increased 
power which they will thereby wield, either for or against the Gov- 
ernment. 

In view of all the Ibregoing, we respei^tfully ask that Congress re- 
gard the administration of Gov. Pierpoint as only provisional — that 
it inaugurate measures to call a State Convention at a fit time, for 
the amendment of the old or the formation of a new Constitution, 
the Convention to be chosen by the loyal people of the State without 



7 
distinction of color, and from which all who have voluntarily aided the 
rebellion be excluded, whether as members or electors, — that until 
such fit time arrive, it organize a provisional or territorial govern- 
ment upon such plan, as in its judgment, shall seem best calculated 
to guarantee the enjoyment of the civil rights and the peaceable pur- 
suit of the ordinary avocations of the people, and to emancipate the. 
blacks from the control of their masters, and educate them for the enjoy- 
ment of their civil rights, to the end that Avhen a State Government is 
finally established, it may De upon such a basis as will protect the 
rights of all, and afford additional guarantees for the perpetuation of 
that Union Avhich a gigantic Avar of four years duration has been 
waged, to defend and secure. 

S. FERGUSON BEACH,) 

LYSANDER HILL, y Corresponding Committee. 

W. J. COWING, ) 

All letters of inquiry should be addressed to tbe above Committee, or to 
any single member of it. 

At.exaedria, Va., June 30, 1865. 



Foand aaipng the papers of Hon . H.^ .H.Bro»well 
forterly CongresG^nan froii HIg . ( iggg.yQ ) 



